"May the odds be ever in your favour"

Hello Everyone :-)

As a great believer in judging book adaptations on their own merit I never usually feel the need to read the source material prior to a film’s release. With that in mind I’m still not sure what made me reach for ‘The Hunger Games’, probably a combination of curiosity and the fact I’d finished Mark Kermode’s second book (‘The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex’ a must for cinephiles everywhere) a week before and was going nuts without something to read. I finished the book in three days. So it was with great anticipation that I went to a screening of ‘The Hunger Games’ last Friday.

‘The Hunger Games’ is set in the dystopian, futuristic state of Panem. Panem is divided up in to fourteen areas, 13 districts and the Capitol. District 13 was destroyed during a national rebellion called the Dark Days and as a result the Capitol developed the Hunger Games to punish the citizens of Panem for their rebellion and to remind them of its absolute power. The games themselves involve a boy and a girl ‘Tribute’ between the ages of 12 and 17 picked (in a ceremony called ‘The Reaping’) from each of the remaining 12 districts that compete in a televised fight to the death. Our heroine is Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16 year old girl who volunteers as the female Tribute from District 12 after her sister’s name is chosen. The story then follows Katniss and her male counterpart, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), on their journey to the Capitol and into the arena.

Cards on the table… this is bloody good.

As that none too brief synopsis suggests, this is a film with a lot of back-story, something that I think is dealt with quite well. There is a great deal of detail in the book that the film makers have deftly removed whilst still keeping the parts essential to the plot. In the name of balance I thought I’d get the opinion of someone that hadn’t read the book, so I sat with my brother and quizzed him on Saturday morning about his take on it all. He said he understood everything and didn’t get lost at all. We both thought a little more explanation as to the location of the arena and rules (or lack thereof) of the games wouldn’t have gone amiss but it’s not a big deal.

Instead of a romanticised, Hollywood feel, it’s quite a stark realistic film with a sharp focus on the tragic and dark nature of the games. I’d like to have seen a little more screen time given to the games themselves because they seemed to go really quickly (it may have just felt like that to me because I was enjoying it…) but the film makers included all the important arena action from the original story. Another, tiny niggle… use of shakey hand-cam… Bloody hell, I felt like I’d been at sea for a week after all the wobbley-ness! Not only that but on a practical level, it makes it quite hard to see what’s going on. So a little less of that next time thank you!

There have been a few grumblings about Lionsgate removing seven seconds of footage in order to obtain a 12A rating from the BBFC. I have no problem with this. Lionsgate are aiming for a teen rating because ‘The Hunger Games’ is teen-fiction. It would make no sense to alienate the films largest potential audience by giving it a 15 rating.
I also don’t buy the argument that it’s censoring the violence in the film. The violence is shocking enough to convey the message it needs to and to my memory there are no important fight scenes that have been left out, but it’s not (and was never intended to be) a full on blood bath. Besides it’s seven seconds… I ask you, how much of a detriment to a film can losing seven seconds of a fight scene make?!?! Seven minutes and you’d have an argument but seven seconds… no.

There are some nice supporting performances. Stanley Tucci as Master of Ceremonies Caesar Flickerman is good (when is he anything other?). I also liked Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy. He’s suitably drunk and disorderly throughout! Donald Sutherland as President Snow seems to have his psychotic temperament under wraps for the time being but that’ll definitely be more prominent in the next film.
The set up for the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) is done nicely. It’s lovely to see that they haven’t honed in completely on the romance because there’s such a lot else in this film about which to get excited.

Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t put a foot wrong as the heroic Miss Everdeen and after this she will be catapulted to the upper echelons of Hollywood stardom, no question. She is utterly convincing as the fiercely independent, stoic and often melancholic female Tribute from District 12. I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to have a role like Katniss in as big a film as this is, especially when it’s so well realised by the actress. She’s playing four years younger but it really works because Katniss is meant to be an old soul.


It’s been such a long time since a mainstream, teen targeting film such as this was so engaging, dark and poignant. It looks gorgeous (save for the hand held camera work), is brilliantly performed and refreshingly non-ostentatious (except for the bits in the Capitol which are supposed to be OTT). As a fan of the book I was totally satisfied and I can’t see any reason why a viewer that is unfamiliar with the books would enjoy it less than I. I’d say that’s a result by all accounts. The odds are TOTALLY in this film’s favour.

Right! Now I fancy some…

Reasons to be Cheerful!
1. The new Dr Who companion has been announced. It’s a girl (surprise surprise!), Jenna-Louise Coleman, a Former Emmerdale actress (I’m reliably informed). I’m trying not to let the fact she’s previously been in a soap cloud my judgement but the producers haven’t put a foot wrong so far in regards to casting so I trust their decision :-)

2. In other ‘Who’ news the teaser preview for the new series of ‘Doctor Who’ has been released on the BBC website! From this we can safely assume that the team will be together for at least the start of the seventh series (yeah alright chill out! Seventh series counting from Ecclestone onwards, not since the show began… obv!) and from this little titbit it all looks pretty good (read as ‘Rory looks pretty good’).

3. David Mitchell and Victoria Coren are getting married! I don’t usually fill my blog with idle celebrity gossip but to me, these are no ordinary celebrities. As a dyed in the wool quizzer, Miss Coren, as the host of BBC4’s super quiz ‘Only Connect’ (if you haven’t seen it, have a go at their ‘Connecting Walls’ and you’ll get the jist of it), is something of a hero of mine and David Mitchell is pretty brilliant himself and has starred in or written many of my favourite things. I particularly liked the way it was made known in the announcement section of the Times, I just think it’s lovely!

4. The Muppets have been given their own star on the Hollywood walk of fame! About time too! I will go there some day and there will be much unashamed, touristy photo-taking :-)

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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Paint it Black

Hello Everyone :-)

I’ve spoke about my relationship with Horror films before as it’s not a particularly healthy one. In all honesty I haven’t watched a scary film since 2008 when I had a pretty traumatising experience with the film ‘The Strangers’. After seeing the film and the ensuing four weeks of sleepless nights, I made the decision to stop watching them to preserve my own sanity.
So it was an odd mix of curiosity and full on nerves that I experienced as I stood at the box office of my local multiplex and asked for two tickets to ‘The Woman in Black’.

‘The Woman in Black’ is the story of Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who is sent from London to a village in the North East to settle the affairs of the late Alice Drablow and collect the legal paper work kept at her home, the isolated Eel Marsh House. During his first visit to Eel March house Kipps sees the shrouded figure of the titular Woman. On his return to the village it comes to light that a number of children have committed suicide and his presence at the house may be to blame for another.

I don’t know what possessed me to go and see this. I think it was a mix of peer pressure and my own curiosity, but you know what? I’m glad I went. Was I borderline catatonic for the whole 95 minutes? Yes I was, but I appreciated the efforts of all involved.
I’m not a connoisseur of the genre; the total number of horror films I’ve sat and watched in my lifetime is definitely less than 10, so I can’t say I’ve seen this kind of thing done better in other things or whatever.  So from here on in I’m writing from the perspective of a Horror ‘noob’ and how ‘the Woman in Black’ felt to me.

It has a lovely look to it. It’s set in Edwardian England which automatically makes everything fantastically gothic and spooky.  The script is great. All the scares are dialogue free, but still, what’s there is fine and nicely played by all involved. There seemed to me to be a brilliant sense of timing throughout the film.  Every scare came at the right time, every plot point paced perfectly. I really enjoyed that about it, it was scary but it didn't try and blindside you by jumping all over the place.

It’s been said that this is a bit of a weird choice for Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter cinematic outing. I disagree. He could have gone in a completely different direction (although to me that would smack of biting the hand that feeds) but I think this is suitably detached from his previous work as the boy wizard. For starters it’s a period piece, secondly it’s a horror film rather than broad fantasy, slightly horror inflected Potter and thirdly he’s playing an actual grown up. I think he does it well, succeeding with the period and horror aspects more so than ‘playing a grown-up’. It’s (unsurprisingly) not as good a performance as the last two Potter films, but it’s still good.

The scares build throughout the film. This was good for me as an inexperienced viewer (it helped me acclimatise myself as the film progressed), but I can see why some fans of modern Gore-Horror could find it a bit slow. I can also see how an audience would find it a bit old fashioned. Not old fashioned in the obvious period sense; you don’t get a great deal of modern ghost stories and audiences that are used to Saw-like complex mazes and Hostel-ish barbarism may find it a bit quaint.

The massive issue with this film is the rating.
Hammer, I understand, I really do. You saw your leading man; you saw his pre-existing fan base, you got pound signs in your eyes, worked out the average age of a Daniel Radcliffe fan and cut the film to fit. It makes perfect economic sense, but, however much of a good decision that was financially, I can assure you it was not a great decision with regards to the rest of your audience. My cinematic experience was only slightly hampered with the presence of a few pre-pubescent potter fans and their seemingly symbiotic relationship with their mobile phones, but my lovely friend Mark Harrison had a far worse experience. I agree with his point in this article; the issue is not that adults are taking their young children to see the film, it’s that kids between 12 and 15 are allowed to see this unaccompanied. Basically, the majority of the little sods don’t know how to behave during a film like this (or any film for that matter) and that affects every other viewer that coughed up £8 for a ticket and the privilege of being blinded by the glare of a phone or having every scare sign-posted by a squealing adolescent.
It’s unlikely I’ll be viewing many of Hammer’s future cinematic endeavours but still, I hope this doesn’t set a precedent. Tapping the 12A market is going to give the company the cash injection it needs after a series of late 70’s/early 80’s misfires and the subsequent hiatus Hammer has taken, but I hope they don’t totally abandon the faithful Horror fan-base for the potential cash of a frankly fickle teen audience.

I think I enjoyed ‘The Woman in Black’… it’s hard to tell. When you actively avoid a genre for so long it’s strange coming back into it. I genuinely didn’t know what to expect or how I’d react. The film, in part, made me want to run screaming from the showing but also had me glued to my seat and I think that was the desired effect.
Is it an entry level Horror? Possibly not, depends what kind of person you are. I think I fared better with this purely because it’s a ghost story and I don’t believe in ghosts, but I know some people that can’t watch anything with zombies in without getting sleepless nights (she can’t even watch ‘Zombieland’… that’s how scared she gets) and they’re not likely to be making the leap from silver screen to real life any time soon, so I guess it's a case of 'whatever floats your boat'.  
The disappointing thing about ‘The Woman in Black’ is that the studio has invited in an audience that isn’t mature enough to appreciate the well paced, slow burning, classic horror with which they were presented. It’s always the way, the few can spoil things for the many.

Now I fancy some…

Reasons to be Cheerful!
1. The Hunger Games is out this week! EEEEEEE! I’ve just finished reading the first book and I really enjoyed it. I predominantly read non-fiction so I was surprised that I couldn’t put it down! It’ll be interesting to see how they adapt certain aspects to the big screen but so far the reviews look promising :-) Looks like I’m going to a late night screening at the weekend so I’ll let you know what I think but either way you should definitely read the book!

2. PROMETHEUS TRAILER TIME!!!!! OMG OMG OMFG! Could I be more excited???? Not really. How fit does Fassbender look as a blonde???? Very!

3. I’m FINALLY going to a screening of ‘Shame’. It’s annoyed me that I’ve had to wait this long and hunt this hard to find a screening but I knew the Warwick Arts Centre would come up trumps! I adore the Warwick Arts Centre, it’s a great venue. If you live in and around Coventry you should definitely give it a look, they have a fantastic cinema (often showing things your local multiplex won’t) and there are always comedians or bands on and loads of other lovely stuff :-)

4. My gorgeous friends from the Unbelievaball Podcast have decided to do a Marathon for Sports Relief and the lovely fools are walking from the King Power Stadium in Leicester all the way to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry! If you can spare a couple of pounds please give via their Sports Relief sponsor page!

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

Goodbye till next time :-)

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It's time to play the music...

Hello Everyone :-)

This feels like it's been such a long time coming (I started my ‘Muppet Countdown’ way back in September last year) and I can’t wait any longer to tell you what I think. So without further ado, it’s FINALLY time to light the lights. This is my take on 'The Muppets'.

‘The Muppets’ follows two brothers, Gary (Jason Segel) and the decidedly felt-ey Walter. The pair, along with Gary’s long suffering girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), go on vacation to Los Angeles for Mary and Gary’s 10^th anniversary. There, whist on a tour of the now derelict Muppet Theatre, they uncover a plot orchestrated by the evil Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to knock down the old Studios and drill for oil. The trio have no choice but to get Kermit and the gang back together and put on one last show in the hopes of raising enough money to keep their beloved Muppet Studios.

I booked a day off work to go and see this film because I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting a minute longer than I needed to in order to see it. That decision was one of the best I have made in recent history. I am 100% serious when I say that.

It’s hard to put a price on joy but for £6.50 I’d say going to the pictures to see ‘The Muppets’ is the best money to joy ratio I’ve ever experienced. The Director, Writers, Producers, Cast, Puppeteers, Set Designers, Make-up Artists, Cleaners, whatever, everyone seems to have put their heart and soul into this project and it totally shows.

The cast are delightful.  There are a whole host of cameos that I won’t go into because it’ll spoil it but rest assured they’re as good as any Muppet cameo that has gone before.
Chris Cooper makes a great bad guy and his rap had me in absolute hysterics.
Amy Adams is wonderful (when is she ever anything less?). Mary is sweet and lovely but also understandably annoyed that her boyfriend of 10 years is yet to propose and spends most of their anniversary vacation with his brother.
Jason Segel really looks like the happiest man alive for the whole 103 minutes. He is absolutely adorable and his on screen chemistry with Adams is great.

The script is King and it was always going to be the key to nailing this movie. It’s funny, light, sweet and fantastically self-aware. When the decision was made to revisit these characters there was always the issue of making the Muppets relevant to a generation of children that probably don’t know who they are. Admittedly a hard task, but I think they manage it well by the introduction of Walter as a new Muppet so we see it all through new eyes. The entire opening sequence sums up the films attitude to its audience. It’s partly an introduction to a new character and partly a love letter written by a Muppets fanboy. Personally I think Segel and co-writer Nicholas Stoller have weaved just the right amount of reverence for the original films and series into ‘The Muppets’ but to me it still felt current and new.

The songs! Oh the songs! Everyone’s talking about ‘Man or a Muppet’ and rightly so after its Oscar win but in my opinion, every song is a winner. I very much appreciated ‘Me Party’ especially as the first time, I went to see it I was on my own and, like some kind of demented Playdays presenter, I’ve been running round singing ‘Life’s a Happy Song’ for WEEKS. I’m so pleased for Brett McKenzie, his brand of humour lends itself perfectly to this kind of project, he’s crafted tunes that sit perfectly into the existing Muppets template but still sound new and lovely. It’s not all new stuff though, there are a couple of covers of pop songs (they are hilarious, I was crying with laughter) and the gorgeous ‘Rainbow Connection’ gets an update (at this point I was crying tears of nostalgic joy).

Alas, it is not a perfect film. As a dyed in the wool Muppet fan it pains me to say it but there is a problem with ‘The Muppets’. A solitary problem it may be but it’s a bit of a big one. The ending. It occurred to me when I went to see this the first time that the ending was a bit weird however I was too busy singing my head off and wiping the tears from my eyes to care (fear not, I wasn’t breaking the Cinema Code of Conduct, I was entirely on my own at this screening and free to do as I pleased), however, the lovely and wonderfully clever Mark Harrison pointed out to me that the ending I and the rest of the movie going public saw, was not the ending that (*WARNING - THIS LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS*) was originally intended to be in the film.  
It saddens me that they didn’t stick to their guns because the original ending sounds better than the one we were given. It also would have explained the Tex Richman ‘Maniacal laugh’ gag that kind of worked to begin with but quickly ran out of steam. I’m having trouble working out their thought process because at 1 hour 43 I don’t think it’s particularly long so they can’t argue they were cutting down the running time. We may never know why, I’m just hoping it pops up as an alternative ending on the DVD.
This did annoy me but I still came out of each screening I attended (I’ve seen it twice and intend to go for a third time…) with a massive smile on my face so it didn’t sully the experience too much.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy it makes me that i am able to say that ‘The Muppets’ is wonderful. On the day I went to see it I was sat on the bus genuinely nervous about what it was going to be like because I’d built it up so much in my mind, it stars some of my favourite people and I mean… it’s THE MUPPETS! I didn’t know what I’d have done if I hated it. But thankfully this is not the case. It’s a breezy, joyous delight of a film.
You don’t have to take my word for it, after all I have repeatedly admitted to being a huge fan of these beloved Henson creations so I suppose I am biased, but please believe me when I say I’ve desperately tried to keep a level head and not look at it through rose tinted specs.
I really can’t find the words to explain how much I loved it; nothing seems to do it justice.

Now, if ‘The Muppets’ isn’t enough to put a smile on your face (in which case get out and never darken my doorway again) how about some…

Reasons to be cheerful!
1. We have a new Avengers trailer… and it’s all kinds of AWESOME! The action might be a bit in your face but I love these characters and cannot wait to see them all on the big screen at the same time. The name change to ‘Avengers Assemble’ is a bit ridonkulous and makes me think of the "News Team... ASSEMBLE!" scene from Anchorman, but frankly this is just too much hotness for one film, it’s almost indecent!

2. I proper love this! Combining TED and 'Prometheus' promo. This new video of Guy Pearce isn't going to feature in the film but it's seriously whetted my appetite! It’s a clever idea, snaps for whoever came up with it!

3. This isn’t anything strictly film or telly related but I just thought it was great; the new advert for the Guardian newspaper and online is genius!

And that’s everything I have for you today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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